The present disclosure relates generally to purchasing recommendations and, more specifically, to purchasing recommendations based on expiration versus consumption behavior.
The shelf-life of perishable products pertains to the date at which it is expected the perishable product to become spoiled despite the operation of a refrigerator or other perishable product storage device. To alert a consumer of the expiration date of a particular perishable product, often the packaging or labeling of the perishable product includes a printed indication of the expiration date of the product. Even with known expiration dates, consumers may discard unconsumed food items that have exceeded the shelf-life of the item due to lack of consumption (e.g., the consumer didn't want to consume the perishable product or it expired prior to the consumer wanting to consume the perishable product).
Smart home technologies act to avoid the unnecessary waste of perishable products. In this regard, basic smart refrigerators can be programmed by a consumer to alert the consumer when a particular product has exceeded its shelf-life. More advanced smart refrigerators can provide for optical scanning or wireless sensing of perishable products' expiration date directly from information included with the product packaging. Even more advanced smart refrigerators may cooperate with smart containers to achieve the automated tracking of food product expiration dates. Of note, smart refrigerators can include embedded computing systems, or smart refrigerators can be conventional refrigerators with coupled computing systems.
Smart food containers may be equipped with communicative sensors that can interact with a reader attached to the refrigerator, and connect to a touchscreen. Whenever a container is used and stored in the refrigerator, the container can be scanned, recognized, and the user can be prompted to enter information related to the contents of the container into an associated computer system. Based on the information and refrigerator settings, software can calculate how long the perishable product will remain edible. Of note, smart refrigerators further can be permitted remote access to data related thereto or stored thereon, for example the data may be accessed from a mobile device so that when a consumer shops at the grocery store, the consumer can determine in real time perishable products to purchase based on low stock reports and/or expiration dates obtained from the smart refrigerator.